


There is no past or future, there is only the Force

by imsfire



Series: Celebrate Rogue One characters 2018 [11]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Chirrut has a vision, Chirrut was perhaps not the best novice initially, Entropy, Gen, M/M, Meditation fic, and he was a young man with a lot of dreams and hopes, death foreseen, meditation is hard if you have a naturally curious mind, past and future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 06:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15113378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: “Nothing is Other, all is One.  I am one with the Force…”Stronger and stronger, the sparks of light, a network across the whole city, glittering with the energy of life; it was a vastness reaching far beyond Chirrut’s own consciousness; it was huge, and so beautiful...It really was happening; he was breathing the Oneness breath at last.  Finally his meditation skills were improving...A novice monk at the Temple of the Kyber has a vision.Written for week four of Celebrate Rogue One; theme, Chirrut and past/future.





	There is no past or future, there is only the Force

“I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.  All is as the Force wills.

“May all things be well in the Force; may all things that are, all that have been and all that will be, be well in the Force.

“May all that is just and strong with the Force be shown to me, may its path be made bright and its will be made clear, may the path of the Force and the path of my life be as one.”

The novice paused in his chanting to lean back slightly and let a brother go past.  He’d only become aware of their approach as the red-robed figure reached him.  More and more often, the sides of his visual field seemed clouded lately. 

The irony of a prayer chant that asked to be _shown_ the right path and to _see_ the will of the Force was not lost on him.  He wouldn’t be seeing any of it for much longer.  Chirrut knew that blue-eye was incurable and irreversible.  If he was lucky, when the condition had run its course, he’d still be able to make out light and dark shapes and distinguish moving from stationary forms.

If he was not lucky, then the darkness would be complete, and absolute.

He had faith, the Force would not take so much from him.  He hoped.

He turned another bead on his counting-string and prayed again. “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.”  Breathed, slow and deep.  A whole world in a breath.  “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me, and all is as the Force wills.” 

Gradually the outside world began to shift.  To become - different.  It wasn’t his sight, this time.  The sound of his brother novices chanting their prayers and mantras around him blended with the song of a tahal bird on the gatepost, with the sigh of the autumn wind, the distant hum of the Great Market.  It was a choir of life.  A world in a single breath; it was happening.

“May all things that are, all that have been and all that will be, may all that are drawn by the Force of Others, may the thousand billion seeking souls be gathered on Jedha’s sacred moon, to rise and find life in the Force, together.”

 _Am I finally mastering the opening of the mind?  I am one with the Force, I am one with the Force.  Please, oh please.  It is my dearest wish_ …

He chanted on, a small surprised part of him observing as his breath deepened and steadied, as the world became - not absent, but differently present.  All life together, no one spark more potent or more blessed than any other.  All of the sparks, like the crystals of kyber that shone from the Temple inside and out, night and day; all light together, stronger and brighter in the Force, together.  “Nothing is Other, all is One.  I am one with the Force…”

Stronger and stronger, the sparks of light, a network across the whole city, glittering with the energy of life; it was a vastness reaching far beyond Chirrut’s own consciousness, it was huge, and so beautiful... 

It really was happening; he was breathing the Oneness breath at last.  Finally his meditation skills were improving.  Perhaps he wouldn’t always be the poor student who couldn’t concentrate.  _No, no, that’s not concentrating, too; let that consciousness too go past, be one with the Force, one with the past, present and future, one with all light and life, in the Force; I am one with the Force, I am one with the Force_ …

Wider and wider, his focus far from himself; and the whole city gleaming with life, shining in its beauty.  He could _see_ it all; and it was so good to see again, to see so clearly in the Force.  To see the light within, the light without, the light on the stones and the deserts, in the mines and the mountains, in the persettia trees shading the markets and shrines, in the Temple itself and all the million souls thronging around it.  The light of the Force of Others luminous as hope in every living thing around him.  Nothing was Other, all was One, truly.

_There is no body anymore, there is only the Force.  There is no flesh anymore, there is only the Force.  There is no beginning and no end, there is only the Force…_

Was this what it was, to be One as the prayer asked, One with the Force?  Was this the surrender of self he’d sought so devoutly?  Was he finally –

_No.  I’m still thinking **I.**   I am still the centre of my being; I, not the Force._

Chirrut sighed, feeling very alone, and the vision of light dissipated and left him, one kneeling figure among many dozens, chanting in prayer. 

There wasn’t much warmth in the winter sunshine, but at least its light made the open courtyard bright enough to be clear to his stubborn, weakening eyes.  Lines of red-clad novices like himself, and black-clad senior monks, and flanking them at the side, deep in meditations that might last three or four days at a time, the red-and-black Guardians themselves.  “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me…”  All their voices in unison ( _well, more or less in unison_ , the bit of his self-mind that would not let go reminded him with amusement; _some of us are better at that part than others_ ); no, _in unison_ , _dammit, consciousness_ ; in unison, because they were there to become as One. 

He could hear the thin light tones of boys ten years his junior, the near-ceaseless voices of the Guardians, with their strange circular breathing technique; the familiar voices of brother novices of his own year, and right at his ear, the deep certainty of Baze Malbus’ beautiful bass.

He hung on that rock of a voice, on its deep faith, its steadiness through all storms.  Its brown rough-silk touch, so strong, slow, steady, unfailing.  _Be one, be one with the Force of Others._

_Look calmly at these distracting thoughts, acknowledge them and let them go._

Baze Malbus had the faith of mountains and thunderstorms.  Baze Malbus was the perfect novice, would surely be a Guardian one day, Baze was everything Chirrut knew he’d never be; his certainty, his strength, his unwavering presence…

_I wish I were a better novice, better student, better man…_

If only he’d been good enough to go and train for a Jedi.  If only he didn’t have to say the words _May the souls of the Jedi Knights have peace and rest_ in an undertone at full-moon prayers when the peace of the dead was asked.  _I wish I did not have to be grateful I was not taken for training because all the Jedi are dead…  I wish these rumours that there were survivors could be true.  Please let the light of their courage not have died altogether…_

_No, it is past, it cannot be undone.  May their souls have peace and rest.  You were not strong enough in the Force to go with them, and now you will not see their kind again._

_Well, and the chances are, I won’t even see my brother novices by this time next year._

_I wish I didn’t have blue-eye._

Ad oh, that last thought was so hard to accept and let go, the distracting thought, that must be accepted dispassionately and set aside; because he longed, longed, _longed_ to keep what vision was left to him.

_Baze says I should have faith.  I **do** have faith, but – I wish I did not have to go into the dark.  I wish I did not have to be tested._

Distracting thoughts.  He had to release them.

_Baze is so good and kind, so certain, so true.  I wish –_

_I wish –_

He’d almost stopped chanting altogether.  So much for the idea that acknowledging those thoughts would serve to loosen their grip.  Chirrut sighed again and closed his eyes on the hazy courtyard.  Spun another bead on his counting-string.  _Pray.  Let go, let be, be One._

“I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.  All is as the Force wills.  May all things be well in the Force; may all things that are, all that have been and all that will be, be well in the Force.”

_Let them go, let them pass, these thoughts and dreams, these wishes and images, might-have-beens, regrets.  Let pass, let go.  There is no past, there is no future, there is nothing to regret.  There is only the Force._

“I am one with the Force…”

The sad thoughts grew paler, drifting into the clouds at the corner of his visual field as he opened his eyes again.  He would let go, through that which he had no choice to release he would release all burdensome demanding dominating things in his mind, he would release, let be, let go. 

“I am one with the Force…”  Let be.  Be.  In the darkness.  Let go.

One with the Force.

There was no past.  There was no future.  There was light in the darkness, and deep darkness, the restfulness of night, the peace of letting-go, even in the heart of light.  There was the inception of a sun and the consummation of galaxies.  All of it, One.

The worlds turned, brightness and shadow; and there was the world of his heart, the blessed moon Jedha, the nexus of the Force, miracle, wonderment, goal of pilgrim souls, crystal in the dark of infinite space, mystery of unerring hope. 

Oceans long-gone were wearing down the rust-red granite, were running dry, vanishing in permafrost, rising again in storms.  Deserts became forests, and forests, deserts once more.  And the billion and the thousand billion seeking souls, that came to follow the path of knowledge, to walk the halls of light and of night, the caverns of kyber.

He _saw_ it.  The Holy City rose on the stream of that faith, on the mystery, its houses and shrines, its history and fate, contained and uncontainable.  Walls and towers rose, fell, vanished like mist, were remade from dust.  Presence of a thousand centuries, overlaid myriad meanings, treasures impenetrable.

A stray joyful thought sang deep inside him: _I am having a vision, a true vision of the Force, all are One and there is no past no future all are One I am one with the Force_ …

A world full of life, peace, hope, full of fear, of hidden hearts and darkness; blood and breath, oneness and terror, cruelty and generous selflessness.  He saw the seeking hearts that flocked to the Holy City when its first stones were laid, that would still gather even when it was all destroyed –

\- _Destroyed.  Oh horror.  A fire from heaven to scourge the past and the future alike, to tear them down and burn a million innocents in their own blood._

_No, please, don’t show me this, I am weak and blind, I am not strong enough –_

He saw himself, guided in his blindness, walking the path of the Force one final time, giving himself in faith.  _Am I to be that man, who goes unwavering to the body’s death?  I had never dreamed of this.  Baze, now him I could imagine it of, Baze with his rocklike devotion, but –_

_Baze? -_

_Please, let me be distracted now, let me not have to see more –_

_There is no past, there is no future, there are years of love and anger and resolve that join us.  Ah, my dear, is this what is to be?_

_I have never deserved you._

And the world wounded to its very soul, robbed and ravaged.  But there was no time, there was only the Force; the birth and death of solar systems, of suns and moons, of star-paths and stars’ dreams, the agony of hope, the energy of breaking apart, gathering, shattering, galaxies forming and falling once more in stardust –

_It’s too much I cannot see this much I am only one man I cannot bear –_

_Can I bear?  To know this, can I bear to know, to see? -_

Even this, to know that all was but a breath and an exhalation, in the timelessness of the Force?  To know Jedha born from a speck of dust, forged and formed, blessed with life and then with death.

Death and rebirth.  The wounds of monstrous war, healing; over centuries, healing.  The oceans returning, the forests growing anew after a hundred years of darkness and rain.  The pilgrim hearts returning, eternal hope; and a new shrine, a Temple and Memorial to the Uncounted Innocent Dead who rest in kyber dust.  There is no death, there is only the Force, and life renews, endlessly, for all time, and there is no time, there is only the Force -

Until then again there is the fading into death, when the sun burns out at last and all the stars are no more.  Even then, rebirth, the cycle spinning, an endless dance…

_But I am just one man, my heart is bursting, my breath is a rose with petals of fire, my mouth is full of stardust for I have seen my death…_

“Chirrut?”

Sound.  Real sound, something present, in the body, in _now_.

He was swaying.  His own body, still there in the courtyard, swaying, and there was a sound, a deep voice beside him, one that he had never known till now just how much he could love. 

His own breath was a strange fluting moaning sound, too fast and thin.  The swaying stopped suddenly, to be replaced with a sharp ache, a blow to his side, his left arm, his head; and the feeling of the gritty pavement against his cheek.

“Chirrut!” said the dear voice, intent, close by and bending closer.  Sounding worried.  Baze Malbus worried about him.

Well, it seemed he had fallen over at his meditation.  Keeled over like a fainting self-starver.  Perhaps Baze wasn’t wrong to worry. 

_But the body’s death is nothing, for all is One, and we are just momentary souls in the timelessness of the Force._

Chirrut opened his eyes.  The world seemed dazzlingly bright.  The borders of sight were still cloudy and dimly seen beyond them was the outline of the Temple roof; but in between him and that blur was the solid and beautiful form of Baze Malbus, leaning over him like a fine young sun, a glow of concern on his face.  “Chirrut?  Brother, are you alright?  Can you see me?”

“I see you,” Chirrut said, panting. “Brother.  Dear Heart.  I see you.”

The tall young man’s face slowly glowed more, flushing to a deep and lovely pink while voices to either side giggled and exclaimed.  But he didn’t back away.

Still dazed from the vision Chirrut thought _Oops.  Now I’ve said too much.  But only the truth, and – I don’t think he minds._

“Oh Baze.” He was shivering, he couldn’t seem to stop his silly distracted mouth from chattering. “Oh, Baze, Baze, I’ve seen the future and the past, seen things I never dreamed, the turning of stars revolving with their fate, I’ve seen it and I know now, I know, we are One with the Force.  Blue-eye-blind or not, it’s all One.  Flowering or destruction, death and rebirth, I’ve seen and I know now, I know that it’s true.  We are One with the Force, and the Force is with us.”

Baze helped him up, and held him while he caught his breath.  Went on holding him, ignoring everyone who looked askance at them embracing in the middle of the prayer-court.

“I know,” he murmured when at last Chirrut stopped shaking. “I know.”


End file.
